


salt the earth

by intergaylactic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Childhood Friends, Creepy Brock Rumlow, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Minor Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Past Abuse, Protective Bucky Barnes, and they will be !!!, anyway everyone is friends and everyone wants to be safe, this is a mess of tropes lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:20:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intergaylactic/pseuds/intergaylactic
Summary: brock rumlow is a slick, charming, wise-cracking businessman that you are lucky to have a claim to. brock rumlow is your fiance. brock rumlow is going to suffocate you.brock rumlow is going to be surprised when you disappear, nothing left behind but a note.but once you’ve gone through with steps 1-4 of your 5 step escape plan, you find out that the ‘friend’ nat told you to meet - the ‘friend’ who is going to drive you across the country to the utopia of safety that is new york - just had to be bucky fucking barnes.“If you’re so annoyed with the music, you can drive.”“You’d never let me drive this car.”“Exactly. Now shut up.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader, Natasha Romanov (Marvel) & Reader, Peggy Carter & Sharon Carter, Sam Wilson & Reader, Steve Rogers & Reader
Comments: 28
Kudos: 63





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> finally publishing this bad boy!!!! it's gonna start angsty and messy, but it's gonna be bursting with happiness and safety and supportiveness by the end of it all!!! i hope y'all enjoy, and also hope that you're safe and feeling okay <3 <3 <3  
> if u wanna yell, hmu on tumblr @mallowswriting 
> 
> (there is mentions of domestic abuse, but it'll never be explicit, and it's mostly used as an exploration of healing, so proceed with caution starshines)

The weather is fantastic: blue skies stretching on for miles, soft breeze caressing your cheek. The morning has risen pretty as a fucking picture, and you are grateful for that. It feels like a sign, a blessing from the universe telling you to take the plunge and follow through with your plan. 

You are going to die today. 

Well, okay, not  _ actually  _ die - if you took that route, you would only be letting Brock win. The thought of that alone sends a shiver down your spine as you get dressed; you aren’t sure when concepts like ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ got mixed into your relationship with Brock, but you do know that it’s another sign that it’s time to go. And Nat agrees, which is a good sign; Nat is a lot of things, but wrong is rarely one of them. 

You pack your bag quickly, like you’ve been practicing. Efficient, you get enough clothes in the duffel to last at least a few days. You’ll buy more toiletries on your way out of town, and you’ve been stashing your books on a shelf Brock doesn’t look at, hidden up inside the linen closet, so that he won’t notice that they’re gone. The money you’ve been storing up in a pair of fuzzy socks next to the books comes, too, and so does the envelope of old photos you’ve pulled out of scrapbooks recently. Everything you need to take is packed away in your bag now, and you put on your shoes at the door, ready to go. 

You do not glance back over the house you have shared with Brock Rumlow for the past two years. This place is a lot like your fiance: a reminder of bad memories, something with a penchant for yanking you back into times you’d rather never revisit. You close the door a bit harder than necessary on the way out, if only to keep all those ghosts trapped inside. 

The duffel sits in your backseat, and you slide behind the steering wheel with determination and nerves tightening your chest, making it hard to breathe. You give yourself just a moment before you go, fingers numb from how tightly they’re wrapped around the wheel. Deep breaths, like you’ve learned through endless googling about coping with panic attacks: in on four, hold for six, out on eight. You repeat the motions a few times, waiting for the feeling to come back to your insides, to feel your heartbeat again. When it starts surging inside you with adrenaline, less like a breakdown and more like the climbing of a rollercoaster, you turn the key in the ignition. 

You’re ready. You’ve been ready for months. 

The houses of your picturesque neighbourhood drift past you like 2-D pictures, a scrapbook of memories: moving across town with Brock, unpacking your things in that dreaded house; walking hand-in-hand with your new fiance down the block, delivering brownies to the elderly couple at the corner; coming home late from the office, stomach twisting because you knew Brock would be upset with you. It’s all washed in soft July sunlight, dreamy and distant - you couldn’t reach this world again if you tried. 

So you don’t. You just keep driving, and you wave to Mrs. Ellison in her garden for the hell of it. You’ll likely never get the chance again. 

Brock Rumlow is the slickest, proudest, most charismatic businessman this side of San Jose, or at least that’s how he likes to be introduced. He’s always been a looker, and always been a bit of a cocky flirt - and that used to be cute. You teased him when he asked for your number, running into you at parties hosted by friends of friends of friends, his hand heavy on your shoulder, his smile sly and knowing. It was like he knew where he’d get you: all alone, the most understanding of girlfriends, the most eager to please any fiancee could ever be. 

You snort, remembering the look on his face when he proposed; bet he didn’t see  _ this  _ coming. 

You turn onto a road that leads just out of the city, towards the highway and the sprawling wilderness. So far, your plan is going off without a hitch. It’s a good plan, straightforward and hard to fuck up:

1) Pack your things once Brock has gone to work.

2) Leave goodbye note for Brock, to keep his eager nose off your scent for a while.

3) Drive out of the city, all the way to that stretch of Alamitos Road with no guard rail.

4) Dump car in Reservoir. Oops. 

5) Meet Nat’s friend and drive to New York.

Steps one and two are complete, and step three is in progress and nearing completion. Your escape is so close you can taste it, sweet and thrilling on the back of your tongue. Brock Rumlow can go fuck himself, because you won’t do it for him any longer. 

Your car slows to a stop at the shoulder of the road, and you get out and remove everything you need, your duffel bag and backpack resting with a thud at your feet. You leave your phone on the passenger’s seat with a twinge of remorse; Brock might be able to track you with it, and you aren’t taking the chance. You’ll get a burner when you can, to call your support team out on the east coast. 

You slam the car door shut with a determined swing, march to the back, and start pushing. It’s a dingy old thing that Brock threatened to replace all the time, but you have clung to because you got to buy it yourself back in college. This car is one of the last things you still have that you were able to get for yourself. The prospect of owning all the pieces of your home, not owing anyone for the roof over your head or the food on your plate or the books you read, is a beautiful one. It gives you the burst of energy you need to topple it over the side of the road, and you watch as it takes a nosedive into the Reservoir. You feel like saluting its sacrifice; this car is doing more for you at the bottom of this lake than you could have ever known when you drove it off that lot, a dreamy-eyed twenty-two year old. 

Above you, a bird sings, a call that dances across the vast surface of the lake. The last ripples of your old life still as your old car disappears, and you haul your bags over your shoulder. You have a lot of walking to do, and you are more ready than ever to get started. 

* * *

_ Brock, _

_ There’s only one way to say this: you will never see me again, and I will never see you again. I don’t know if this will be sad for you (although losing investments has upset you before, so there is a chance), but if you are sad, I hope you learn to grieve in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone else. Please don’t hurt anyone else.  _

_ Goodbye,  _

_ Y/N _

* * *

You tip your head back, breathing in air that tastes purer, fresher,  _ more  _ \- it’s as if you haven’t breathed fully in years, and you’re letting your lungs expand for all they’re worth on the side of this road. The sky is blue and beautiful, and the birds are calling to each other, and the sun shines down on you like a blessing. Y/N almost-Rumlow is gone and dead, drowned at the bottom of the Almaden Reservoir. Long live Y/N Y/L/N, the freest person alive for just this split second in time. 

Then a car horn honks, and you nearly jump out of your skin. 

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing on the side of the road?”

The blood lurches to a stop in your veins as your vision returns to Earth, and you see  _ him  _ there, leaning out of the window of his car like he’s just asking after a neighbour’s day, and not actively destroying your last chance at happiness. 

Bucky fucking Barnes. 

You study him for a moment, sizing him up: his hair has grown out a bit longer since you ran into him last Christmas, and it curls around his ears under his baseball cap; his arm, plain metal glinting in the sunshine, rests comfortably along the bottom of his car window, and he’s watching you with eyes that spell trouble. 

He recognizes you. He has to have, to be talking to you like that; Bucky, for all his faults, isn’t one to bother anyone on the side of the road unless he knows them. 

And, in a manner of speaking, Bucky Barnes does know you - certainly well enough to know the difference between you, dead at the bottom of a lake, and you, alive and walking along a highway. 

You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose, trying to wrangle the sudden panic gripping your insides. “What d’you want, Barnes?”

“Barnes?” And now he’s pulling up next to you, and you can see the blue of his eyes turn almost warm in the soft sunshine. “Can’t even say my name now?”

“Not if I don’t want to,” and yeah, that’s petulant, but you’re a bit focused on not freaking out. “Look, Bucky, I - I can’t talk right now.” 

“Can’t drive, either?” He glances down at your bags, and fuck, he’s noticed your supplies. That’s it, you’re done. You’re seen nearly thirty minutes after your car gets dumped, walking around by yourself with a duffel bag full of clothes and all the money you have? Brock will be on your tail in a matter of hours. 

“No.” How are you supposed to ask Bucky to forget he ever saw you? He doesn’t know what’s going on, and the idea of recounting the whole sordid tale makes you want to physically puke, preferably all over his car. If anyone asks him if he saw you, or asks for information on your whereabouts, there’s nothing stopping Bucky from telling everybody that you’ve run away like a mad woman. 

“Look, Bucky I’m waiting for somebody, so if you could -”

“Nat told me I’d meet you here, so if you could -”

The two of you pause at the exact same moment, and you think your brain has short-circuited.  _ Nat told me I’d meet you here _ . God fucking damn it. 

“Earth to Y/N?” Your eyes snap to his, and Bucky’s frowning at you. “Did you hear me?”

“Nat told you to meet me here?” You demand, marching right up the side of his car. 

Bucky leans further out the window, still frowning. “Yeah? Didn’t she tell you?”

“No, I -” then a horrifying thought occurs to you, and you have to stop yourself from grabbing for Bucky’s shirt collar. “Did she tell you why I’m leaving?”

“No!” His hand goes up in defense, but you can see the gears turning behind those pretty blue eyes. He’s always been too smart for his own good. “I just know I’m supposed to meet you here, and take you to New York. I’m headed that way anyway, and she said you couldn’t get a ride . . . or drive, apparently.” 

“I don’t think . . .” You trail off, weighing your options. You feel like you’re choosing between certain doom, and uncertain doom. That moment of true freedom is over; things are complicated now, and it’s all Bucky Barnes’ stupid fault. He just had to get dropped in your lap by the universe whenever you needed him least, didn’t he? Or by Natasha, who should’ve  _ fucking known better _ \- 

“Y/N?” Bucky asks again. “If you don’t want me to drive you -”

“No! No it’s - it’s fine.” You bite the words out, focusing on adjusting your plan. “I need the ride.” 

“Alright.” He unlocks the passenger side door, and jerks his chin in its direction, an invitation in his eyes. “Get in, then.” 

* * *

You sit in Bucky’s passenger seat, fidgeting in your lap as you try to figure out how to get yourself out of this mess. You can’t have Bucky, of all people, driving you across the country. Bucky hums along to the song on the radio, something old and bluesy, and it’s not doing anything to calm your nerves. It’s too familiar, and it’s disorienting to remember what you’ve set in motion and where you are right now. 

He’s taking a route that cuts through the city, and you’re horrified by the journey. Bucky is still decently far from your old neighbourhood as he drives towards the highway, but you still feel trapped here, the world suddenly towering over you on either side of the road. You need to come up with a reason for him to let you out somewhere on the edge of town, so you can hitchhike from there . . .

“You’re getting married?” Bucky asks, and you flinch. 

“What?” Your head snaps to the side, and you watch him swallow, eyes glued to the road ahead of you but attention clearly on you in his peripheral vision. 

“Steve mentioned, you know, you and Rumlow . . .”

“You still talk to Steve?” You frown, easing back against your seat; Steve had never mentioned that he and Bucky had started talking again, and neither had Nat. Is Bucky talking to Sam and Peggy, too? Does he . . .  _ know _ ? 

“What did he say?” You interrupt him as he confirms that yes, he does still speak with his best friend; his eyes cut to you for just a second, annoyed, but you ignore the look. “About me and Brock?” 

Bucky snorts derisively, and takes a turn; you glance out the window and see you’re gliding down a main street, and you start to shrink further into the car, avoiding the passenger window as much as you can. 

“He just said you were engaged, and that it was Rumlow. You know, none of us ever thought you would stay with him after college - you dropped out of grad school for him?” 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I did.” Your gaze darts around outside, making sure no one’s looking your way; but everyone is pretty much occupied with their phones and the traffic they’re navigating through. 

“Everything okay over there?” Bucky asks, and you glance at him; he’s watching you with a confused little smirk, now that you’re resting at a red light. 

You shrug, a butchered movement, and look away. “Yeah, fine. Just fine.” 

“‘Kay, cause you’re acting fucking weird, and I know you’re always a little -”

“ _ Shit _ !” You cut him off again, and slide out of your seat and below the dashboard of the car, hidden from view. Bucky watches you with wide eyes, attention completely taken off the road ahead. 

“What the hell? Are you on the run from the mob or something?” 

“No, just -” You gesture to the window, not caring if he knows, not caring if he figures you out, because Brock Rumlow is standing on the street corner hardly twenty feet away, chatting with a colleague and probably heading home for lunch - something he only does when he’s not in a trusting mood. 

You weren’t subtle enough. He thinks you’re up to something, as usual, and he’s heading home for lunch where you are supposed to be waiting for him, working on dinner or cleaning the house or tending to the garden or doing anything you can not to feel imprisoned. 

“Isn’t that Rumlow? You don’t want to say hi?”

You scowl, pressing the heel of your hand against your eyes, trying not to panic in front of Bucky. “No, I don’t want to say hi. I need to get the hell out of here, alright?”

“Y/N -”

“I’m serious, Bucky.” You look up and meet his eyes, pleading, your dignity set down somewhere on the car’s worn grey carpet. “I have to go.”

“Okay, okay,” he relents, and zooms through the light the moment it turns green. He keeps glancing down at you, and you pretend not to notice his gaze. You don’t want to do this, not with him, goddamnit - and now Brock is gonna know  _ now  _ and not later, after work, and he’s going to start looking for you  _ now  _ instead of tonight, and you need to get the hell out of dodge before he does.

“Y/N, we’re almost out of the city.” 

You uncurl yourself from your hiding spot, and check out the window: Bucky was telling the truth. You can see the desert approaching, the soft beige of wilderness, and heave a sigh. 

“Look, Bucky, thanks for getting me out of the city, but you don’t have to drive me all the way to -”

“Don’t do that.” You cut your eyes to him with a glare. 

“I’m sorry?”

Bucky sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “Nat really laid into me over the phone, alright, and she’ll kill me if I let you hitchhike your way across the fucking country. So don’t bother doing the thing you were gonna do. I’m driving you.”

“I think I can decide who -”

“Not when Natasha Romanoff is threatening me,” Bucky snaps, and he reaches across the space of the cab to bat your hand away from the door handle. You reel your hand in, away from both the handle and his touch. “Just - I’m driving you. Don’t worry about it.”

“You know I’m not worried about  _ your  _ sanity here, right?” You bite out, and Bucky gives you a dry laugh in return. 

“Oh, I know. But -”

“Nat.”

“Yeah. Her threats trump yours. Sorry, princess.” 

“Typical.” You lean back in your seat, watching the sign next to the highway bid you farewell on behalf of San Jose. “And don’t call me princess.” 

Bucky’s eyes are back on the road now, but of course that doesn’t stop him from trying to get the last word in. “What about sugar? Honey? Babyg-”

“Just drive the damn car.” 


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you and bucky are on the road, and after five years apart, things are tense - but you are determined not to let bucky ruin your euphoria.

“If you’re so annoyed with the music,  _ you  _ can drive.” 

“You’d never let me drive this car.”

“Exactly. Now shut up.” 

You slump back down into the passenger seat, relinquishing the CDs you had been inspecting from deep within Bucky’s glove compartment, and let out a small huff. You say one thing about his copy of the Blues Brothers soundtrack . . . 

“I can’t believe you still have  _ CDs _ ,” you continue. You know you’re needling him, but what else are you supposed to do in the middle of nowhere, when you aren’t even allowed to pick the music? 

“They’re practical,” Bucky mutters, not looking at you. His gaze is focused on the road ahead, although you doubt that  _ that  _ is about Bucky’s practicality: sand and foliage sprawl out around the highway for miles, and your car is the only thing moving beyond the gentle drift of dried grass plants in the breeze and the lazy route travelled by the puffy white clouds above. 

“Practical?”

“You can’t listen to spotify in the middle of nowhere,” he says, shifting to get more comfortable behind the wheel, one hand dropping to his side. He looks natural like this, driving down the winding, sun-warmed road, eyes bright from within his soft smile lines and pinked cheeks. He’s still frowning, though, marring the image of contentment; he’s been frowning since you left the limits of San Jose, and it’s mostly been pointed at you. 

“Fine,” you relent, rolling your eyes and leaning back against the window, looking out to the landscape beyond. “You spend a lot of time out in the middle of nowhere?” 

“You gonna spend this whole time asking me about my life story?”

“Well I know _ that _ story,” you say, and immediately resolve to keep your mouth shut for the rest of the drive. 

Bucky tenses, free hand coming back up to the wheel; you can see how tight his grip is, the flexing in his arm as he holds himself safely on his side of the car. You cringe, a hot burst of embarrassment bubbling up inside you. What a great tone to set for this cross-country roadtrip. 

“Maybe you don’t,” Bucky says, voice clipped. “It’s been a while, honey.”

“Ugh, don’t call me that,” you snap back, arms crossing over your chest as you curl in on yourself. “And I think I remember high school, Barnes, it wasn’t that long ago.” 

“Then you remember that I don’t like to be  _ bothered _ .”

Bucky’s reply is final, and you sit in silence, stewing in irritation and discomfort. High school really wasn’t that long ago, and you can’t help but remember when he  _ loved  _ to be bothered, and to be the one doing the bothering. You remember him flicking fish crackers into your face, the shocking cold of the garden hose water when he surprised you on your second-floor balcony, the glint of challenge in his eyes when you finally pushed him into Peggy’s aunt’s pool. Bucky Barnes was a first-class botherer, and you’re almost offended by his denial of it. 

“Whatever,” you finally sigh, turning completely away from him to stare out the window. “If you wanna brood for the rest of the drive, you can go right fucking ahead.” 

“Thanks, I will.”

“Good.”

“Great.” He draws the word out, slow and stinging, and you don’t look over - you don’t have to. You can hear his annoyed little smirk well enough from where you are now. 

“I’m gonna take a nap,” you say, wriggling into a position that is slightly more comfortable. Slightly. “Wake me up when we stop somewhere.”

“Alright.” 

Your eyes squeeze shut, trying to reach for the peace of sleep, when a sudden blast of noise startles you back into reality. You glance to the radio, where Bucky has turned the volume dial all the way up; the tsunami of sound crashes between the two of you, the Rolling Stones wailing away while you try to sleep.

You can feel Bucky’s eyes boring into you, but you just turn further onto your side and close your eyes. 

There are many things you’re good at, and today you are going to fall back on a skill you haven’t had to dust off for a while: proving to Bucky Barnes that he cannot annoy you into submission. 

* * *

When you (pretend) to wake up, it’s two hours later and all on your own. The landscape outside has begun to cool with the shadows of approaching dusk, and Bucky has switched from the Stones to a mix CD that seems to mostly be ska. He’s actively trying to end your life. 

“I’m pulling over at a gas station soon,” Bucky says as you sit up. “Should be less than a mile from here.” 

“Cool.” You stretch a bit - sitting curled up like that has put an ache into your bones,  _ fantastic  _ \- and give a long, dramatic yawn. Bucky watches you with a slight frown, and you hope he feels bad for ruining your sleep, even if just a little. 

“We need to top up the tank,” he continues, and you spot the approaching gas station in the distance, and the small town blinking away nearby. “And also - you know. Food would be nice.”

“Yeah, it would,” you agree, only now realizing how hungry you are. You’d skipped breakfast when you left home, too keyed up to eat, and now you could really go for whatever junk you could scavenge from a gas station aisle. “You grab the snacks, I’ll do the tank?” 

“Fine by me.”

Bucky pulls into the station swiftly and hops out, heading into the station interior without another glance at you. You clamber out, hoping to stretch the kinks out of your legs, and start filling up the tank. You spy Bucky through the gas station window, prowling through the small aisles of snacks. 

Ducking behind the driver’s side of the car, you reach down into his door compartment and pull out his phone, flicking it on and grinning in relief; there’s a signal. You open the phone - his password is the same as ever, though you try not to dwell on that too much - and pull open a safari tab. 

It feels silly to type your name into the search bar, but nothing is sillier than letting your ex-fiance assume you’ve killed yourself instead of breaking up with him, so you think you’ll just have to get used to that. 

When nothing turns up, you let out a long, slow breath. Either Brock believed your note - the best case scenario - or he’s already trying to find you. 

You can only hope that he’ll find your drowned car, assume the worst, and give up. You laid enough evidence for him to at least think you’ve died somewhere out in the Reservoir or the surrounding wilderness. Wouldn’t that be nice? 

You shove the phone back into the compartment and close the door, hurrying over to the passenger side and waiting for the tank to fill up. A distant tinkling draws your attention back up to the station, and Bucky approaches you with a plastic bag of snacks and a returning frown. 

“You nearly done?” He asks, walking right past you into the driver’s side and tossing the bag into the car. 

You nod, finally detaching the pump and heading inside to pay without another word to him. If Bucky doesn’t want to make conversation tonight, you aren’t going to embarrass yourself by forcing your company on him. 

When the two of you drive off into the descending night, you reach over into the plastic bag and find a bag of chips with a suspiciously familiar label. You glance up at Bucky, whose gaze is drifting a bit in your direction, the dark road ahead even emptier than it was all day and free of any distractions for him to occupy himself with. 

“You like those, right?” He asks, voice deep and tired. 

You nod, opening the bag and leaning back into your seat with a little frown playing at your mouth. “Yeah. Thanks. Didn’t think you, uh, remembered.”

“Your favourite chips?” 

“Anything, honestly,” you say, and you mean it. You had thought you were the only one plagued with the memories of a childhood spent in the sunshine, having to move past it all on your own. To think that Bucky knows anything about you from then, that he’s carrying the same memories in his head that you’ve had to . . . it’s disconcerting. 

“I’m not a total monster, you know,” he quips, but there’s not enough lightness to it for you to even crack a smile. He means it, too. 

“I know,” you murmur, looking away from him. You can’t see the crease between his brows any longer, or you’ll say something stupid, you know it. “I’m gonna get some more sleep.”

“‘Kay.” 

“Alright.” 

This time, with the radio gently crooning something easy and sweet in the background, you do fall asleep, temple against the cool glass of your window. You can feel Bucky’s gaze on you, but the weight of it is less of a burden and more of a reassurance. It feels better to know you aren’t alone out here in the encroaching desert, even if it is Bucky Barnes. 

* * *

The weather is getting worse the further the two of you go, and you watch with disinterest as rain spatters against the windshield in a lazy drizzle. You turn in your seat, sighing, missing the chance to see the landscape; at least you could be entertained by the distant mountains and softly rolling desert. Now, you’re stuck under a permanent grey cloud. 

The permanent grey cloud in the driver’s seat looks over at you, and you can see the complaint on his face before he even speaks. 

“I know,” you cut him off, rolling your eyes, “‘shut up about the rain, Y/N, it’s not so bad.’” 

“I wasn’t gonna say that,” Bucky says, looking back out the windshield and turning the wipers back on. “I just don’t like listening to you complain for miles on end, no matter how justified.”

“If  _ someone  _ was willing to play I-Spy -”

“You wanna play I-fucking-Spy with me? Now?” Bucky asks, eyebrows raised. You look him over, a thorough once-over that includes his rumpled t shirt, dust-stained jeans, and the empty chip bags stashed on the floor at his feet. Then your gaze returns to his face, and you watch the steady flush spread up his ears as you give him a saccharine smile. 

“No. I guess not.”

“Just for that,” Bucky snaps, rifling around in the glove compartment, forcing you to scrunch up against your seat to avoid grazing his arm, “here.”

He shoves a disc into the slot on the radio, and hits play.

“ _ Bridge to Terabithia _ by Katherine Paterson . . .”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Bucky glares at you, a challenge in the cock of his eyebrow. “You have anything you’d rather be doing, princess?”

“Fuck you,” you retort.

“. . . Jess slid out of the bed and into his overalls . . .” the audiobook interjects. 

You tip your head back against the seat, letting out a loud, irritated sigh, but say nothing else. Bucky turns back to the road, you turn back to the rain-streaked window, and the audiobook narrator sits somewhere uncomfortably between the two of you, making enough space to be heard above the palpable annoyance that’s filling up the car. 

“Hey, look, the border.”

You glance up, swiping at your eyes with the back of your hand, and see the sign Bucky’s pointing to: a big, bold blue one, with NOW LEAVING CALIFORNIA printed across it for all the world to see. 

It isn’t until you see NOW ENTERING NEVADA that you let out the breath in your lungs. You roll down your window a few inches, grateful that the rain had eased an hour or so ago, and take a few strong gulps of non-Californian air. 

You’ve crossed state lines without Brock. You’re a whole state away from him. 

“You alright?”

Bucky’s wearing this funny little smile when you look back at him, and the amusement in his face makes your cheeks warm a bit. You roll the window back up and shrug, feigning disinterest but failing miserably. On the radio, the audiobook ends with a quiet finality. 

“Good story.”

“Yeah.” He chews his lower lip, and you follow his gaze to the glove compartment. “You know, I’ve got the Grapes of Wrath in there, if you really wanna get this party started.”

That line startles a laugh out of you, and it feels too good for you to regret it. Bucky looks just as surprised as you, but says nothing about it. You open the glove compartment and start rooting around through his CDs again, searching for something else.

“Why exactly do you have such an extensive collection of audiobooks?”

“Get bored in the middle of nowhere,” he explains with a shrug. “I’ve also got  _ The Great Gatsby _ and the first and third Earthseed books - they came in a set, sort of - and -”

“- an English-Russian lesson guide?” You ask, wiggling that CD in his direction with a bemused smile. 

Bucky flushes again, and it looks good on him. It always did; when Bucky blushes, it’s a spark of life in his face, and undoes some of the hollowness in his expression. It’s nice. You let that thought hit you like a bug on a windshield, brushing it aside without concern. 

“Garage sales, you know.”

“I don’t, but thanks,” you reply, and hold up your latest discovery with a gasp. “Oh, fuck yes!”

“What’s -”

When the Star Trek theme starts playing from the radio, Bucky turns a daggered glare on you, but you hardly care. You’re grinning from ear to ear, watching him squirm like he wants to run. 

“You have one, two, three - no way,  _ eight  _ different Star Trek audio dramas? On  _ CD _ ? Bucky, I’m so relieved to know you’re still a fucking nerd.”

“Someone was trying to get rid of them, I was just doing that guy a fucking favour -”

“These aren’t even officially produced! They’re fanworks that you listen to while you drive along the open fucking road!”

Bucky’s smothering nervous laughter into his hand, and you can’t stop smiling; your cheeks are a bit sore with it, and you realize it’s been too long since you felt like this, even if it is at Bucky’s expense. 

“Grapes of Wrath, now,” he manages to get out, waving your protests down until you slink back from the radio, giving him the chance to switch the CDs one-handed. You’re straight-up  _ pouting  _ now, and you know he’s going to give you shit for it, but the teasing feels nice. You missed being able to feel this familiar with someone, and the knowledge that it’s Bucky and that it’s only because Nat strong-armed him into it does leave a sting behind as your laughter fades. 

“Lame,” you mutter, turning back to the window. 

After a minute or two of audiobook white noise, Bucky pipes back up. “You’re not gonna say goodbye to California?”

“Sure,” you say, voice flat with frustration. You start rolling down your window, and Bucky reaches out to snatch at your sleeve as you lean out of it.

“What the hell are you doing?” He demands, and you just roll your eyes.

“Saying goodbye.” You lean your head out the window, turning to look all the way back down that mostly-empty highway, where you can still almost see the signs signifying your escape. “Fuck California! Good fucking riddance!”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky gripes as you finally return to your seat; you leave your window rolled down, the wind drowning out the Grapes of fucking Wrath and Bucky’s complaints and the memory of Brock telling you that you were getting married and moving to San Jose. 

“Fuck California,” you murmur to the wind. 

“Fuck California,” you faintly hear Bucky agree, though there’s a million questions in his words that twist at your insides. 

You aren’t going to answer any one of them, and you know that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys enjoy!!! i'm having a lot of fun with this series, and i hope everyone reading will, too. updates are going to be posted every friday from now on 🥰🥰 
> 
> if you wanna yell, hmu on tumblr @mallowswriting 💞💞


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bucky starts to get suspicious about why you left california, and you’re starting to suspect that the bucky you knew and the bucky driving you aren’t as different as you thought.

_ Blue eyes shine brighter in the August heat, and his laugh is sharp and loud when you curse him from Peggy’s aunt’s porch, hands on your hips. He’s not listening to a word you’re saying, just laughing up into the summer sky, and Peggy’s hauling you back into the house, and suddenly he’s walking away, straight into the endless desert at the end of her block, and he’s never coming back -  _

“Hey, wake up.”

You snuffle as you unscrunch yourself from your sleeping position, rubbing at your tired eyes. Bucky is waiting for you, his seatbelt unclipped and eyes wide with expectance. Those eyes. You frown, unbidden, and unclip your own seatbelt, trying not to make eye contact with him. 

“Spotted a truck stop and figured we could use the break.” You look up and see the plaza you’re parked in front of, all timeworn chrome sizzling under the beating sun. It’s well into the morning now, and the heat is almost muggy as you step out of the car. 

“Good idea,” you say, because you have to say something, or Bucky’s going to get weird again. This feels like a tentative truce, an agreement on quiet that arose after you left California, and you don’t want to break it so soon. “I have to pee anyway.”

“Thanks for the info,” Bucky replies, teasing in his voice, and you walk in an awkward two-step to the doors of the central building, out of sync but too impatient to walk separately. 

“Can you grab food or something?” You ask, although you really aren’t hungry; that bizarre dream has your stomach twisted into knots, and you doubt you’ll unravel them quickly. It just feels good to give Bucky something to do while you hide in the bathroom for a minute. The vision of the desert, dead and endless, is pooling painfully in your chest. 

“Sure - I’ll get coffee, too,” Bucky offers, and you nod before making a beeline for the washrooms, not looking back. 

The washrooms are clean enough, and you duck into one of many empty stalls with a relieved sigh. You felt exposed out in the plaza, where any passerby could spot you and identify you and call Brock and -

And now you’re getting paranoid. You sit on the toilet seat, lid down, and press your face into your palms, trying to steady your breathing. Maybe twelve hours after setting off, the reality of what you’ve done is only now sinking in: you left your ex-fiance a faux-suicide note, got in a car with Bucky Barnes, and ran away to New York. You faked your death. Everyone you know thinks you’ve disappeared. You gasp in a breath, and it tastes sour. If Brock catches you, you’ll have to go back to San Jose, to a neighbourhood full of people who will think you’re out of your mind, to your parents, who think nothing could be wrong with Brock and the life he’s constructed for you, and you’ll have to go back and pretend everything’s fine and -

You retch, just a little, and lean back; the cold tile of the bathroom wall is soothing on the nape of your neck. Brock isn’t going to catch you. He couldn’t. You mouth those words a few times, pushing them deep into the center of your brain, hoping all your other thoughts will start to orbit that one: Brock isn’t going to catch you. Brock isn’t going to catch you. You’re never going to see him again. That is over. 

You wait for your heart to settle down before standing and unlocking the stall door. Your reflection startles you for a moment, staring back at you from the broad stripe of mirror that spans the opposite wall. You inspect yourself for a second: rumpled clothes, tired eyes, in desperate need of a cup of coffee and some chapstick. You gather some cool water in your palm and rinse your face, patting it off with a paper towel, and take a long breath. You’re in a staring contest with yourself, waiting for your reflection to stop testing your resolve to walk back out and find Bucky. You remember that that’s  _ you  _ testing your own resolve, and let out a soft snort. This trip is going to destroy any remaining sanity you have left, it seems. 

“You can do this,” you murmur, nodding to yourself. “You can do this.”

“You okay?” You jump, and the lady standing by the hand dryer gives you an apologetic look. “Sorry, just making sure.”

“Yeah, I’m - I’m all good,” you say, nervously smoothing out the crease in your shirt, hoping if you leave soon she won’t remember your face. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she replies with a two-handed thumbs up and a confused smile. She looks about as lost as most of the people in these spaces, stuck in the haziness of travel. That kind of impermanence makes it feel like a club bathroom, exhaustion lowering a wall or two and begging for people to offer their company for a few seconds. “Good luck!”

“Thanks,” you say again, slowly backing out of the washroom.

“No problem.” She turns back to the hand dryer, humming to herself, and you turn on your heel, marching right out of the washroom and towards your fate. People are not out to get you; sometimes they’re just offering condolences over the sink of a public washroom. You feel your steps pick up, pulling you from the panic you leave behind you like a handprint on that bathroom stall. You’re ready to get out of here, and keep on running. 

At least Bucky’s getting coffee. 

Bucky was also getting suspicious, it seems. He hasn’t stopped shooting you sideways glances while you make your way across the parking lot back to his car, and you’re trying to ignore him while you sip delicately at your coffee, still too hot to gulp but too needed for you to wait. 

“You good?” You ask when you slide into the passenger seat, balancing the cup between your thighs as you buckle your seatbelt. “You’re acting weird.”

“Am I?” Bucky’s tone is flat as he sits in the driver’s seat and levels you with a narrowed stare. “Am  _ I  _ acting weird?” 

“Jesus Christ - what’re you talking about?” You shuffle to face him, taking another sip of coffee. Better to air out whatever grievance he’s come up with to torment you now, before you get back on an endless highway and have no one but the sparse trees for company. 

“Saw the news when I was getting coffee.”

Your stomach sinks, but you hold it up with the reassurance that there’s no way Bucky already saw a report about you, it’s hardly been a whole day, there’s no way -

“It said you’re missing. Wanna explain that to me, Y/N?”

Your stomach drops right through the floor of the car, and the coffee suddenly smells acrid and off-putting. You put it back in the cupholder and scramble around your brain for an explanation, an excuse,  _ anything  _ to say, but your mind is blank with the panic that you had managed to wrangle down in the washroom. Bucky’s furious stare is hauling it right back up to the surface, and for a moment you’re scared of throwing up in his stupid car. 

“Don’t take me back.”

Bucky’s brow furrows, but you’re too caught up in holding down your meager late-night snacks to make heads or tails of his reaction. “What? Take you back to San Jose?”

“Don’t.” Your words are coming out hard, louder than you mean to, but you need to hammer your message home: “Bucky, if you take me back there, I will murder you, I swear to god. I will make you regret it.” 

He’s still just watching you panic, and you try to reel in whatever of your dignity you can. Your stomach is still twisted up, and your hands are a little numb, but you feel as though you can successfully keep all of your fear packed down inside of you. The less Bucky knows, the better. All you need from him is a ride; as long as he doesn’t take you back to Brock, you’ll be fine. 

“Okay, yeah, alright,” he says, but he isn’t putting the key in the ignition. “But am I not supposed to be concerned that you’ve been reported missing?” A beat, a painful twinge in your chest. “Does Rumlow not know where you are?”

“Don’t worry about him,” you say, because you think if you say his name aloud he might be able to find you. He’s become an ancient curse, an old evil that can only be defeated by enough distance, by erasing him from your mind entirely. “I just - I need you to keep driving. Okay? Do not take me back there.” 

“I won’t,” Bucky says, but you don’t stop glaring at him until he turns and turns the key in the ignition, puts the car into drive, and starts pulling out of the parking lot. You only feel your muscles begin to relax when you’re speeding down the highway, off into any direction that will put space between you and Brock fucking Rumlow. 

* * *

_ His eyes are nice, kind of like the way an old house is nice. There’s something a bit worn about them, soft and dark and easing you into conversation, pulling you into him like his hand on your waist, his grip self-assured.  _

_ You kiss Brock on the mouth because he only likes to kiss you there; he doesn’t want pecks on the cheek or kisses on the forehead, because he says those are for girlfriends and little kids. A  _ real  _ kiss, the kind where he pours you into himself like a glass of heady wine, is the kiss you reserve for your fiance, for someone who needs people to know who you belong to.  _

_ His tongue is hot on yours, to the point of scorching. You can’t breathe when he kisses you like this, but you smile when he finally pulls away because he does, because your mother does, because all his friends do.  _

_ He does not let go of you for the rest of the party. You do not try to escape his grasp.  _

_ You wake up in a car, alone, and outside the windshield the desert grins at you, and sends a scavenger to fly overhead, guarding your vehicle as it trudges down the road.  _

* * *

You drive the rest of the day in a silence so thick it threatens to suffocate you. The bickering was somehow better than this - at least making fun of Bucky felt familiar. You knew how to navigate Bucky the Asshole. But Bucky the Getaway Driver Who Doesn’t Know He’s a Getaway Driver? You have no idea what to do with him. 

He doesn’t seem interested in  _ The Grapes of Wrath. _

When Bucky finally pulls the car over onto the side of the highway, driving straight into the crackling, dry underbrush, you turn to him with a reproachful glare. 

“I’m taking a nap,” he says, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning off the ignition. “And you’re not driving my car. So get comfortable.” 

And with that, Bucky turns over onto his side, facing away from you, and goes right to sleep. You can see it in the gentle rise and fall of his breathing, the true, calm quiet that settles over the car. He’s out like a light, and no wonder; he’s been driving since you met him yesterday morning. 

You settle back against your seat, but find yourself too keyed up to sleep any more. You take to going through more of Bucky’s CDs, pinching each cover between your fingers to avoid clacking them together and reading the tracklists. Some of them are mixes he’s burned himself, and his messy scribbling reveals a disc with only three songs on it, all loud punk anthems, and a disc brimming with old ballads and love songs. You tuck them both away once you notice a familiar track written in Bucky’s writing. 

It’s been nearly two hours, and darkness is truly beginning to envelope you now. The stars are blinking into existence far, far above you, and you look out your window for a while, just tracing patterns in them. Bucky has hardly stirred since he turned away from you, and you doubt he’s waking up any time soon. 

You can see the glint of his phone screen in his door compartment. 

It takes a few minutes of steeling your nerves, but you eventually lean across your seat, careful not to tap against anything as you reach. You hold your breath, eyes trained on the phone, and stretch as far as you can without moving from your seat. Beside you, Bucky’s breathing is a gentle metronome, and you can see the shadow on his slack jaw, the flutter of his eyelids. He’s dreaming, probably, and the thought gives you a moment’s pause. You watch him as he does it, curiosity and shame holding you in place, before your fingers finally close around the top of his phone. You pull it out as if it were a live bomb, and open your door and slide out in a single motion, moving quickly and silently. 

The image of Bucky sleeping sticks to your brain, and you shiver as you enter his passcode. 

Nat’s name in his phone is just ‘Natasha’ - you think it’s because he’s boring for a second, but then you see that Steve is still ‘soviet propaganda lover’ and Sam is still ‘steve’s smarter half’, so maybe it’s just because Nat is terrifying. You’re dialing the number when you hear a sudden bang in the car, and a muffled curse. 

Shoving the phone behind your back, you lean back into the car through your open door, watching wide-eyed as Bucky sits up and rubs at a spot on his forehead. He glances over at you and frowns; you’re beginning to wonder if that expression will be permanently etched into his face by the time you get to New York. 

“Hit my face on the window,” he explains, then frowns even harder. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing,” you say, shrugging, and the movement is too big to be a good lie. “Looking at the stars.”

“Nerd,” he says, then spots your hand behind your back. “What’re you actually doing?”

“I  _ said  _ I was -”

But Bucky is already lunging across both seats to reach for you, and you shrink back with a squeak, tossing his phone at him. It smacks his shoulder and drops to the floor, the carpet muffling its fall. The dry underbrush, unfortunately, does not muffle yours, and you’re surrounded by an eruption of crackling and snapping twigs as you hit the dirt. 

“Y/N?” 

You shudder, pulling a twig from your shirt and trying to collect yourself. You can hear Bucky’s footsteps thudding along the side of the car as he approaches, but you are both miles and years away from here, hurrying into the bedroom to wait for Brock as he paces through the living room, burning in his eyes. 

“Y/N, hey -” 

Bucky’s hand hovers over you, stretched out but uncertain where to land; you push it away with all the strength of a kitten and haul yourself to your feet, brushing off your pants and staring straight into the shadowed interior of the car, not trusting yourself to look at Bucky yet. 

“You alright?” He asks, and you nod, one firm movement to get him to back off. 

“Alright.” He peers into the car and plucks the phone off the floor, turning back to you. “What were you doing with this?”

You pull in a steadying breath and turn your gaze to him; Bucky stares back at you expectantly. The phone in his hand feels like an accusation, and it shrinks your voice practically to nothing. You  _ hate  _ this. 

“I was gonna call Nat,” you say, staring at a spot on Bucky’s cheek. You can’t look him in the eye, not like this. “I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“Which is why you waited for me to fall asleep to do it in secret?” He asks, and you’re grateful that it’s a rhetorical question; you don’t want to answer questions right now, you just want Nat on the phone to tell you that everything will be okay. “Fuck it, I wanna call her, too.”

“What, no!” You exclaim, reaching for the phone, but Bucky holds it just out of your reach, eyebrows flying up. 

“Why not? Unless there’s something she knows that I don’t.” Nat’s going to tell him, and then he’ll  _ know _ , and you’ll spend the next few days driving across the country with Bucky while he  _ knows  _ and what will he  _ think  _ -

“God, of course she knows something  _ you  _ don’t! How could I have told you  _ anything _ , Bucky, I haven’t spoken to you in five fucking years!” This sudden frustration feels good, feels productive, and you hold onto it with both hands. 

Bucky just glares at you, though, and you feel like a child under that gaze - it’s just on the wrong side of disapproving, like he’s trying to  _ scold  _ you into explaining yourself, and frustration seizes your muscles up, clenches your fists to channel itself somewhere. You want Bucky to stop looking at you - you want Nat to tell you everything will be fine. You can’t have both. 

Bucky is already putting the phone to his ear, and you can hear it ringing. The sound is loud in the buzzing quiet of the nighttime around the two of you. 

“Nat?”

You chew your lower lip, watching Bucky’s face as Nat starts speaking. She’s going to tell him. God. 

“Nat?” You call out to her, hoping to interject, and Bucky scowls at you. “Nat, can I talk to you, tell him to give me the phone, Nat -”

Bucky is holding you back with one hand, and snaps into the phone, “Y/N won’t tell me what the fuck is going on, so I hoped you might, Romanoff. You gonna let me down, too?” 

That phrasing shouldn't sting as much as it does, but there you are, still hurt by it.  _ Let me down _ . 

Bucky’s face freezes for a split second, his jaw tightening, and then he’s holding the phone out to you in a quick, dismissive motion. “Take it, talk to her. Put it on speaker.”

“Fuck you,” you spit, taking the phone before he can snatch it back, and holding it up to your ear. “Nat?”

“Oh, babe,” Nat says, voice raspy with sleep and flooding you with warmth. “Look, I knew you wouldn’t say yes if I told you who I asked to meet you, but before you even start -”

“Bucky, Nat? Seriously?” You whisper-yell, turning away from Bucky, but you think he still heard you; at least, that’s what his loud scoff says. “You couldn’t think of anybody else?”

“Strangely enough, I don’t know  _ that  _ many people just wandering aimlessly around the west coast who can drop everything to drive you to New York,” Nat says. It isn’t mean, and her tone softens the blow, but her response still makes you swallow against the despair rising in your throat. “So it was Bucky, or nothing. Did he do something?”

“No, he just - I mean, it’s awkward -” another scoff from Bucky, and you roll your own eyes through their sudden glassiness, “- but it’s just . . .” You trail off, glancing at Bucky over your shoulder. He’s got his arms crossed, watching you like you’re taking too long, and you turn back around. “Hold on.”

You scurry to the other side of the car, glaring at Bucky when he tries to follow. “No, stay there. I’ll be back - just give me thirty fucking seconds with just Nat.” He stops, and you can see the way his foot hovers slightly before retreating a step. You make your escape, maybe ten feet away from him, and turn your attention back to Nat.

“He doesn’t know about Brock, does he?” 

Nat snorts, although there’s not much humour in it. “You think if he knew, he would’ve picked you up and run instead of taking it straight to Brock - or to Brock’s face?” 

You sigh, closing your eyes and trying to organize your thoughts. “Nat, I don’t want him to know, but he wants to know what’s going on. I don’t think he’ll take me all the way to New York if I don’t tell him, but I - I  _ can’t _ .” Because it’s humiliating, because he’ll think you’re an idiot, because he’ll never see you the same way again. You don’t tack any of those explanations on; Nat already knows, because they were the same reasons you waited so long to tell her everything. 

“Y/N . . . he’s not gonna think less of you. Not because of something like this. But,” she adds before you can argue, “I won’t make you tell him. Just . . . let me talk to him, okay?”

“You won’t tell him anything?” You ask. 

“Not a word. I swear on Steve’s life.” 

“Not yours?”

“No, I think he can take that risk today.” 

You let out a small, watery laugh, and spend exactly ten seconds pulling on a neutral expression. There’s nothing you can do about your eyes, which might be a little bloodshot, but you hope Bucky won’t see them properly in the dark. 

You hand him the phone without another word, and clamber back into the passenger seat, closing the door behind you. Leaving him with Nat, completely unsupervised, makes you a bit fidgety, but you need a moment alone before you have to look at him again. You can only hope Nat values Steve’s life as much as you think she does. 

Ten minutes later, and Bucky is sliding into the driver’s seat. He tucks the phone back into the door compartment, and settles in behind the wheel, though he doesn’t start the car yet. When he looks over at you, you can feel it tugging at your attention, begging you to look back. You don’t. 

“Onwards, I guess,” Bucky says, and then the car is roaring to life. You buckle your seatbelt, and you let your heartbeat thrum somewhere in your throat, painful and tense. 

You don’t relax again until Bucky reaches past you and into the glove compartment, and carefully feeds a disc into the slot. The volume is a gentle lull when the CD finally starts. 

“ _ The Grapes of Wrath  _ by John Steinbeck . . .” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway here;s the next bit everybody!!!! everyone has been so sweet about this fic, and i hope y'all enjoy this chapter. stay safe and have a good week starshines <3 <3
> 
> if u wanna yell hmu on tumblr @mallowswriting


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bucky is about to find out something incredibly troubling.

Deep into the thick, hazy warmth of your second morning driving, you reopen the glove compartment and resume your critique of Bucky’s music collection. 

“This is discs one and three of a Tchaikovsky ballet tribute concert,” you declare, holding up the offending cover and waving it to catch Bucky’s (irritated, as per usual) attention. “What do you even  _ do  _ with this? And why is it three discs long?”

“It’s a long concert,” Bucky snaps, reaching for the cover; you pull it out of his grasp, clutching it to your chest like an unearthed treasure. He glares; you smirk. “And I just make up what happens in the middle.” 

“Isn’t the second disc . . .  _ Swan Lake _ ? You just make up the whole ballet?”

“I know how the story goes,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes. “Girl gets turned into a swan, prince . . . falls in love with . . . the swan . . . or her sister? Is it her sister?” 

“If we had reception right now, I’d fact check that,” you reply, removing the current mix CD of mostly 90s indie and replacing it with Tchaikovsky disc one, “but I’ll take your word for it for now.”

“Thanks, always good to have the benefit of the doubt with you,” Bucky retorts, and you just toss him a smug grin. Those have been coming back to you pretty easily the last two days. 

As the strings seep out of the radio, the soft, tentative beginnings of  _ Sleeping Beauty _ flooding the car, you relax into your seat and fiddle with your shirt, tying and untying the fabric to move your hands. You’re building up a lot of nervous energy being stuck in this car for so long. 

“So . . . I do wanna ask about you and Rumlow.”

Scratch that -  _ a lot  _ of nervous energy. 

“Why?” You ask, stiff, hands still against your middle. 

Bucky shifts, and both of you let the orchestra distract you from the tension he’s gone and made. “Nat told me not to ask - I mean, she told me she’d remove my pancreas if I did . . .”

“Then why are you asking? Nat not so scary anymore?”

“No, I just . . .” Bucky isn’t looking at you, and that makes you more nervous. “Last night. When I reached for the phone, and you - you fuckin’ threw yourself out of the car -”

“I didn’t  _ throw  _ myself anywhere -”

“I’m not bringing it up to embarrass you, Jesus,” Bucky replies; he sounds a bit winded. When you sneak a sideways glance at him, he’s got a hand scrubbing at the side of his face, scratching mindlessly at the stubble on his jaw. “I just . . . I was wondering if that had anything to do with why you, uh - why you didn’t tell Rumlow where you were going. Or that you were going at all, apparently.” 

“I -” The sound comes out of you without your permission, and you clamp your mouth shut against it, not certain where the rest of the sentence will go. You need to think this through, but there’s that aching tightness in your chest again, back for more; you can’t focus on anything except how much you  _ do not  _ want to be talking about this. 

“I can’t tell you.” It comes out as half-whisper, and you wince at just how small you sound. Clearing your throat with a strangled little cough, you keep going. “I just - I can’t, okay? It’s not - I can’t - I need us to -  _ not  _ talk about any of that.”

“Alright, I just -”

“San Jose doesn’t exist to me anymore, okay? It can’t. I’m done, with all of it.”  _ With Brock _ . 

“Alright.” He’s not snapping at you, which is a nice change, but you can’t help but notice the pity colouring his voice, and you resent it. That’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid; the only person you want to know about you and Brock and San Jose is Nat, because she hasn’t given you an ounce of pity since you called her in your backyard for the first time, crying down the line while she talked you through your anxiety attack. Nat gave you instructions, incentives, advice; she did not give you pity. 

But Bucky? He wouldn’t know what to do but pity you. At least, the Bucky you used to know would respond like that - and you’re starting to think that the Bucky you knew and the Bucky driving you to New York are more reconcilable than you first let yourself believe. 

“You know the plot of  _ Sleeping Beauty _ ?” Bucky asks the question suddenly, yanking it into existence and throwing it up between the two of you, a wall to close out the sympathy and discomfort radiating off of you both. “I mean, y’know, the real plot. The original.”

“You mean to tell me that it’s not actually about the fairies and the pink dress or the blue dress and -”

“No, the original’s kinda dark, ‘cause the princess is asleep when -”

“When he kisses her and wakes her up?”

“Y/N, no, it’s -”

“I like the fairies.”

“You’re ridiculous.” 

But Bucky’s trying (and failing) to hide a smile now, and you feel your chest loosen a bit. It looks good on him; he seems as unfamiliar with the expression as you feel, which is oddly reassuring. It’s nice to know that you put something that nice on his face. 

“So, when do we get to listen to those Star Trek dramas?”

“I’ll play I-Spy before I let you put one of those in.” 

“Lame.” 

* * *

“Okay, so, the list,” you say, turning over a crumpled receipt from the last pit stop you made, pen poised over the paper in your lap. “Snacks?”

“Yeah, also maybe earplugs for me,” Bucky says, and you level him an annoyed glare that he doesn’t even see; he’s quipping at you while scrolling through his phone, because he’s just that good of a multitasker. “But seriously, can you grab some sudoku books or something?”

“You can’t do sudoku and drive at the same time.”

“Sure I can,” and his eyes glimmer when he glances up at you through his lashes, “you can just write the numbers down for me. We’ll be a sudoku machine by the time we get to New York.”

“Ugh, fine,” you relent, and jot the request down. “I’m gonna grab a flashlight, too, because I can’t  _ believe  _ you don’t keep one in your car -”

“There are two entire headlights on this thing -”

“- and maybe some deodorant.”

“Oh thank god,” Bucky says, nodding sagely, “I was gonna say something a few miles back, but I didn’t wanna hurt your feelings.” 

“Fuck off,” you toss over your shoulder as you slide out of the car, and Bucky winks at you.

“Can’t - gotta drive you everywhere.”

“Just for that, I’m not gonna get your sensitive bitch toothpaste,” you say through the open window. “You can use colgate like the rest of us.” 

“Just remember the test, princess! I wanna know if we’re finally pregnant!” 

You duck your head as you cross the sidewalk to the drugstore, flipping Bucky off over your shoulder as your face warms; you can hear him cackling before the door swings shut behind you, and you set off with your list, ignoring the curious glances from the elderly couple who followed you inside the store.

Asshole. 

* * *

Bucky finally tugs his gaze away from the drugstore door, which just closed behind your back, his laughter fading pleasantly into a soft sigh. The muscle memory of laughing like that is still there somewhere inside him, which is nice; he’s missed this, he realizes. With anyone, but especially with you. 

He’s forgotten how good you look in the sunshine. 

Clicking his phone back on, Bucky opens up his voicemail, where Sam has left at least seven messages. This isn’t that strange: Sam has a lot to say, and Bucky has been taking the time to listen over the past year or so, since he reconnected with him and Steve. But right now? Anything to do with New York sets off alarm bells in Bucky’s head. 

He’s right to be anxious, it turns out. 

Sam’s voice is just a little frantic, edged in a way Bucky hasn’t heard since Sam’s sister was going into labour. He’s talking fast, and Bucky can hear Steve’s deep murmur in the background. 

_ “Look, Bucky, you guys have to be careful. Rumlow’s - well, obviously the guy is crazy. He reported Y/N missing. Nat said you guys already kinda know that, but now he thinks Y/N’s been kidnapped. They’ve started a search, and - fuck, man, someone reported you.” _

Bucky’s breath sticks in his throat, and he coughs through the rest of the message. 

_ “They saw you at a truck stop somewhere in Nevada, and they reported Y/N got into a car with a guy with your description. They haven’t said your name, but I’m willing to bet Rumlow remembers you well enough to know it might be you. He definitely knows it’s a friendly face. Y/N left him a note, he was supposed to think it was suicide - which is also crazy, by the way, and I want you to tell Y/N that for me. Anyway, just - you guys gotta be careful. Steve says so, too. Don’t do anything stupid, and stay low on your way here. You gotta keep Y/N safe, alright? Call me when you get this.”  _

Bucky fumbles with his grip on the phone before he drops it into the empty passenger seat, and then he looks at the emptiness of that passenger seat, and the words  _ you gotta keep Y/N safe  _ are running through his head and startling him into movement. 

He hauls himself out of the car and is heading for the drugstore door when you come flouncing out, bags in hand and flat glare levelled at him. He’s never been happier or angrier to see that look on your face; the feelings mingle together, sour and uncomfortable in his gut. 

“You have any other ways of embarrassing me in public that you wanna test out?” You ask, eyebrow cocked in challenge, and Bucky sighs in a single, sharp note that catches your attention. “What is it?”

He just gestures to the car, glancing quickly around the quiet main drag of this small town, and hurries back to the passenger door, opening it for you. 

“Just get in. We have to go.”

You move without another word, and maybe that’s what sets off Bucky’s panic for real; it’s always so disconcerting to see you follow his instructions without question, like you can sense whatever danger is approaching and it’s bad enough to make trusting him look like the better option. 

Bucky gets behind the wheel, and he tears out of town with that panic nipping at his heels. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tysm for the response angels, your encouragement for this fic is so kind!!!! i hope y'all enjoy this next chapter, and stay safe and have a good week starshines 💗💗
> 
> if u wanna yell, hmu on tumblr @mallowswriting


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> panic sets in, and you and bucky have your first proper argument in five years.

Bucky drives out of town like a maniac, which is so unlike him that you clutch the door handle in your surprise and panic. The dry world of Nevada flits past you outside in a blur of spiny trees, spindly limbs given life by Bucky’s desperate need to put distance between you and the rest of civilization. 

He parks the car with no preamble, and you jerk in your seat as it halts on the side of the road. There are no cars as far as either of you can see, and Bucky gets out without a glance in your direction. When you don’t move for another moment, he sticks his head in the driver’s side window; his voice is sharp. 

“We need to talk.”

Following Bucky out of the car is a messy moment of stumbling and kicking up dust on the packed earth outside. The sun beats down, a spotlight on the two of you, as Bucky turns to face you. He’s livid, and you get ready for the fight. 

“You faked your fucking death?”

You aren’t expecting that question and it throws you for a loop; you open your mouth, but nothing comes out. It’s a yes or no question, no room for wriggling your way out of it. When you let slip a sigh, Bucky nods a few times, slow and distant. His expression is a million miles away. 

“What the fuck is going on here?”

“I don’t -”

“I need to know what I’ve gotten roped into, and I’m not getting back in the car until you at least explain to me why Sam says people think you’ve been fucking kidnapped.”

“I’ve been what?” Bucky’s full of surprises this morning, it turns out. 

But he just shakes his head, and the laugh he lets out is startling in its darkness. He’s genuinely pissed at you, in a way you don’t think he has been since you left San Jose. This is the Bucky you remember most clearly, the image of him you’ve had stamped into your brain since you last saw him: exhausted and finished with you, a shadow overtaking whatever glimmer lives in his eyes. 

This is the part where Bucky leaves. 

“I didn’t know he would convince people I was  _ kidnapped _ ,” you begin, and that isn’t a great start because Bucky just laughs again, slow and bitter, “because that’s fucking insane. He’s - I left a  _ note  _ \- he fucking  _ knows  _ I left of my own volition, I left the car to -”

“The car?” 

“ _ Yes _ , the fucking car, the stupid car, I pushed it in the fucking reservoir so he could find it and think -”

“And think what? That you pushed your car into a lake and then disappeared? You didn’t think he’d question that?!”

You try to breathe deeply, to calm yourself and think of a way to explain this without Bucky panicking even more than he already is, but your chest is going to burst with how tightly it’s being constricted. You can’t think; all that’s running through your head is the bubbling on the surface of the reservoir as your car tipped beneath the water, the look in Brock’s eye as he stepped into your bedroom. 

“I thought he’d leave me alone! I thought I’d be safer if he thought I was dead!”

Your breaths are coming in airy and fast, ripping right through you. Bucky is watching you with something bordering on mania, and you can see the shaking in his right hand as he curls it into his side, spreading it palm-down on the side of his thigh. It’s a gesture you’ve only seen a few times in your life, and it pulls a small, ragged sob out of you. 

“I just want him to leave me  _ alone _ ,” you plead, like Bucky can do anything for you. Like he can fix anything at all. “I had to go, and Nat said -”

“Nat wanted you to fake your own death?” 

“She thought if I just took off but left a note like that, maybe Brock would buy it long enough to stay away. She thought it would be better than if he thought I just left, because then he would - he’d do  _ this _ , fucking shit -”

“Y/N, somebody saw us at the truck stop,” Bucky says, and your gasping hitches. “They think you’ve been kidnapped, and now I’m driving you across the country and that means  _ I’ve  _ kidnapped you -”

“But you didn’t, so it doesn’t matter! I’ll just say you didn’t, but I can’t go back, Bucky  _ please _ -”

“I’m not gonna take you back there!”

The silence that follows Bucky’s exclamation is long, but he lets it stretch on like the fucking horizon. You sit down, drop right there on the ground, and focus on breathing with your legs tucked up, your forehead resting against your knees. He stands where he is, waiting for your breathing to even back out, and when he finally approaches you he does so with slow, louder-than-normal steps, letting you know where he is. He doesn’t touch you, but he crouches down in front of you and waits for you to look up. You don’t meet his eye for a second, but eventually you’re drawn to his gaze like magnetism; he offers you a grim twitch of his mouth, acknowledging the eye contact. 

“This is such a fucking mess,” Bucky finally continues, and you cough a pathetic little laugh. “And I . . . I mean, Y/N, you  _ faked your death _ .” 

“I just didn’t want him to try and find me,” you mutter, as if that explanation will increase in merit the more you repeat it. “I don’t want him to find me.”

“You’re never coming back from New York, are you? You’re gonna stay there?”

You nod, and Bucky sighs, a whistling through his teeth, and his exasperation washes over you like the too-warm sun. 

“And I’m driving you away from your fiance -”

“Ex-fiance,” you interject, because you have to; if you don’t start now, you never will. Bucky snorts. 

“- your ex-fiance, right, who you left a fake suicide note for?”

“Yeah. That’s pretty much it.” 

“I think we both know that that isn’t  _ it _ .” He doesn’t say it with malice, just knowingly; there’s a small nod and an aborted motion in his hand, like he stops himself from reaching out for you. Instead, he clambers to his feet and then holds out a hand; it hardly shakes anymore. 

“C’mon,” he says, nodding to the car. “We should get driving if we wanna get anywhere before dark.” 

You get to your feet, ignoring his hand, keeping yourself curled up tight and protected. Bucky takes it in stride, and makes his way back into the car. You hesitate for a moment before you reopen the passenger door, sliding in and closing it behind you. While you were arguing, the car has warmed from the sun. 

When he eases back onto the road, his grip on the wheel is steady but white-knuckled, and you don’t reach for the radio at all. The static silence is only broken by the grumbling of the car’s engine as you keep trudging along down the highway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys enjoy this quick little chapter!! 💛💛 stay safe and have a good week darlings 💖💖
> 
> if u wanna yell, hmu on tumblr @mallowswriting


	6. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bucky offers a tentative peace offering, and you try to move on with your journey eastwards.

Bucky’s car is difficult to nap in, but that apparently won’t stop you from dozing off for the rest of this trip. You shift awake, shivering slightly in the sudden cold; night has crept in since you drifted off, and it’s a stark difference from the overbearing warmth you fell asleep to. 

Blinking the sleep from your eyes, you realize that, for the first time since leaving San Jose, you’ve managed to sleep dreamlessly. The thought is reassuring - you were starting to dread the bizarre visions that plagued your sleep in this car. You glance up through the windshield, into the artificial light spilling through the glass, and make out the shape of a lit-up plaza through the shadowed night. 

“Where . . .?” You turn, only to see the driver’s seat empty of a bothersome asshole. Bucky has vanished, and left you alone in the car. 

You sit up, your skin tingling in your panic, and start scrambling around for both an explanation and your things. The only thing going through your head is the argument from earlier today:  _ please don’t take me back there, please please please _ , Bucky’s hard, confused stare, his thoughts a million miles away. He kept looking past you, right to the horizon, and you wonder now if he was trying to spot San Jose in the distance. If he was planning while you tossed your dignity at his fucking feet. 

You’ve got your duffel bag halfway over your shoulder and are snatching up your open backpack when the crunch of footsteps startles you from outside the car. Your head snaps up, and you know you must look ridiculous: a caricature of fear, eyes wide and face drawn in your sudden spiral of doomed prospects. Bucky stares back at you, and his face is unreadable in the strange light of the plaza. 

He opens the driver’s side door and sticks his head in, eyebrows raised as he appraises you. “You going somewhere?”

“No, I -” You swallow, dropping your backpack back where it was in the backseat. “Thought you were maybe still considering . . . you know.” You can’t say it, can’t bring yourself to plant the idea back in his head. 

Bucky just watches you for a long moment, and you see the barely perceptible twitch of his mouth as he frowns. “No, I was, uh -” He holds up a paper bag of fast food, a greasy peace offering. His frown quirks to the side, some semblance of a pleasantry. “Figured I’d let you sleep. You weren’t all fidgety and stuff, thought you could use the rest.”

“Oh.” You nod slowly, relinquishing your grip on the duffel bag and letting it settle between your feet. “Thanks.” You think about him watching you sleep, fitful or calm, and your stomach flips. “Where are we?”

“Little town in Utah - more of a street, actually. We just crossed over the state line.” Bucky finally sits down and lets the paper bag rest between you; the smell is enticing, but you wait for him to start pulling things out before you reach for the food. He hands you a wrapped hamburger without looking at you, and you take it without touching his fingers, though you imagine you can feel the warmth of his hand when you get that close to him. “I’m sticking to less crowded highways and stuff, to avoid being around too many people. Sam suggested it. Also Nat left a message, and . . . well, you should give it a listen.” He puts his phone in your lap before turning back to getting himself situated behind the wheel again.

You set your burger down, balancing it on your knee, and click on Bucky’s phone; his lockscreen is a photo of some scraggly, sun-drenched beach, and you wonder when you’ll be able to ask about it. He doesn’t say a word when you type in his password, and you guess he knows you remember it; he never was much for changing them. When you hold the phone up to your ear, the sound of Nat’s voice is a balm for the final strain left on your nerves.

“Hey guys, we . . . okay, Y/N, if you’re listening to this - which you  _ should be _ \- don’t panic, okay? Because everything’ll be fine. But you should probably know that Brock has been sniffing around here.”

You freeze, and Bucky’s watching you now; you look to him, needing an anchor to this car, this chance at escape, while Nat explains. He holds your gaze steady, paused in his own ministrations, and you think he can hear the voicemail in the silence of the car. 

“He doesn’t know what’s up, I don’t think, but he called Steve and Sam. Peggy says he tried to call her, too, but she ignored the calls - she’s still up in Montreal for that conference, so she’s feigning ignorance for now. Sam and Steve didn’t tell him anything, I swear. He hasn’t called me yet, but when he does I’ll send him searching somewhere else. But for now, because he thinks you might come to New York, you might want to take your time getting here. Stick to back roads and shit, and I’ll call Bucky when I know where Rumlow’s looking. I think he’s hired a PI, which . . . Jesus Christ, babe, this is a mess. But it’s fine, everything’s fine, he’s not gonna find out about anything. You just have to trust me, okay? I’ll call when you’re in the clear over here, and then Bucky’ll get you straight to New York, and they won’t come back for a while. I’ve got a friend here who can help you set up a restraining order just in case Brock comes back, once you get here, but for now hold off on it, okay? Stay out of sight, and I’ll take care of the rest. Love you, stay safe, and tell Bucky that if he doesn’t stick to the plan I’ll -” 

The voicemail ends with a little beep, and you slowly set the phone back into your lap, your stomach clenching and unclenching like a curled fist. 

“Y/N?” Bucky’s leaning a little closer, and the blue of his eyes turns to silver in the reflected light of the plaza. “Everything’s fine. We’ll just take a little longer getting to New York, take as many back roads as we can. It’ll be alright.”

You tip your head back against your seat, letting the dark roof of the car consume your vision, and let Nat’s words play out again.  _ I’ll take care of the rest _ . You can almost see her, the glint in her eyes when she threatens to have Brock chasing his own tail in no time. You remember the looks she used to shoot him when you first started dating, the space she’d carve for herself between you two at parties when he wouldn’t relinquish his grip on your waist, the hardness in her voice when you called her that first night.  _ I’ll take care of the rest _ . 

“You think Nat’s gonna murder him?” You ask the question as a joke, but can’t laugh yet. Your throat won’t work around the sound. 

Bucky laughs, though, a little strained noise that loosens your insides a bit the way a sip of vodka might. A rush of warmth in you, easing the tension you’re carrying. 

“She might. Can’t tell if that would be more or less convenient.” 

Your head shifts and you look over at him, the sour taste of an apology on your tongue. “Oh God, and now you’re gonna have to drive even  _ more _ , and we’re gonna be stuck in the middle of nowhere for god knows how long, Christ, Bucky, I’m -”

“You apologize and I will make you walk behind the car for the next hour.”

“But you -”

“Y/N.” Bucky’s face is serious when he stares you down, and you wonder if he’ll reach out to touch you. But he doesn’t; he only keeps you in place with his gaze. “I wasn’t busy anyway. And I’ve never actually seen Utah. This could be fun.” 

“Oh my god.” You finally laugh, and it hurts but you don’t regret it. “Okay.  _ Fuck _ . Okay, yeah. Utah. Back roads. God, I just - back roads?”

“Yeah.” Bucky nods at your burger, and you remember the food, the peace offering, the normalcy. You pick it back up and unwrap it slowly, taking your time, waiting for your twisted stomach to settle back down. “Anyway, Sam was right when he said we should stick to empty spaces and lay low while we travel. It might take a bit longer, but it’ll be better if nobody actually sees you, you know? So, back roads. Middle of nowhere. Enjoy the burger while it lasts.”

You’re inhaling said burger while he talks, and let out a little appreciative hum when he glances over at you; it’s the first real food you’ve scrounged up since setting off, and somehow the difference between a burger and a bag of chips feels enormous right now. Bucky manages an actual smile when he sees you devouring the food, and jerks his chin at the bag. 

“There’s fries, too. You okay?” 

“Great,” you say once you’ve swallowed, peeking into the bag. “Is there ketchup?”

“Of course, I’m not a monster.”

You pause, hand rifling through the bag for a second fry. “So you’re okay with . . . I mean, you know, trying to hide?”

“If you don’t want anyone to spot you and call it in to Rumlow and whoever he’s bothering with this case, then yeah. We’re laying low.” 

There’s a moment of quiet where Bucky goes ahead unwrapping his burger - he hasn’t even  _ unwrapped  _ his yet, you didn’t even realize how damn hungry you’d been - and you let your mind run through everything Bucky’s just confirmed for you. It’s a wild few seconds in your mind, but it’s the first time in the past day or so that you don’t feel like you’re spiralling. It’s the formation of a real plan, a real reassurance, a real partner in this stupid situation. 

Your eyes flick up to Bucky, and he meets them as he munches on his food. He’s schooled his face into something neutral, but you know the look in his eyes too well to fully believe that: he’s waiting for you to speak, minding his own business until you pull him into conversation. The little crinkles by his eyes where he’s trying to stop himself from seeming too pleased is a memory come to life, sitting in the seat across from you like this Bucky and the Bucky from high school have melded together for just a moment. Even the burgers smell familiar, and the front seat of this car feels more like what you know home to be than your house in San Jose ever did. 

“Thank you,” you say, because what else are you going to say? What else is there between you after all of this?

Bucky just winks. “Glad you like the burger,” he says through a mouthful of his own. 

You scrunch your nose in disgust, giving his arm a small shove with your elbow, and Bucky laughs as he starts pulling out of the lot one-handed. 

“God you’re nasty,” you mutter, but it’s ruined by the smile fighting for room on your mouth. You hide it with another bite, but you know Bucky spots it before he turns his attention back to the road. Too observant for his own damn good. 

“You wanna pick the music?” Bucky asks, and you grin. 

“You’re going to regret that.”

“I know.”

* * *

Driving through Utah, it turns out, is unbelievably boring. You feel just a flash of sympathy for the people of Utah - after all, you’re only flitting through the place, not spending your life here - but then you spend another twenty minutes staring out at the endless landscape of rocky terrain, and suddenly your sympathy has dried up in the sun, too. You’ve only passed three cars in the last hour, and the isolation is beginning to make you feel a bit hazy in such a uniform setting. 

Even the third disc of Tchaikovsky, with Bucky knowing almost every note and humming along for your entertained mockery, has lost some of its magic over the hours. 

“D’you think we could get out for a bit?” You ask, twisting around in your seat, trying to get comfortable. “I’m gonna go insane.”

“D’you think the rock is gonna be more exciting  _ outside  _ of the car?” Bucky replies. He’s lounging like a cat in a sun-patch, one hand on the wheel, the other laid along the base of the driver’s side window, which is cracked just enough to let a breeze flutter through his hair. He’s got sunglasses on, and when he turns to face you, you’re met with your warped reflection in the tinted plastic shades. 

“It’ll be better than  _ this _ ,” you gripe, waving a tired hand at the car’s interior. “We couldn’t even play I-Spy if you were willing to try.”

“Which I’m not,” he reminds you, and you roll your eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re determined to be boring.”

“Just take another nap,” Bucky suggests. 

“So you can watch me sleep again? No thanks.”

“I don’t  _ watch you sleep _ ,” Bucky shoots back. “I just happen to be the one driving the car.” 

“Which is because you won’t let  _ me  _ drive for once -”

“Because I’ve seen you drive.”

“In high school!” You scoff, arms folding defensively over your chest. “I can drive now!”

“I still have nightmares about the incident at the pier,” Bucky says with a firm shake of his head. “ _ And  _ all the times out on the freeway, because you drove like a fucking maniac -”

“Oh, you picture Steven fucking Rogers in the backseat right now and tell me he couldn’t goad you into speeding.”

“So it’s Steve’s fault you knocked over a stop sign?”

“That was the afternoon I got my license, asshole!”

“And it’s a testament to how shitty the DMV’s judgement is.”

“Ugh, just - I’m going to die of boredom out here, and I can’t nap anymore. I’ll become catatonic, I swear.” 

“I’ve got at least two other audiobooks in there,” Bucky says, nodding to the glove compartment. “How do you feel about  _ The Two Towers _ ?”

“You only have the second one?” You ask, searching the compartment for the offending lone disc. You find it, holding it up like an excavated artifact, and start replacing the old Creedence album already in the radio slot. 

“I get these at garage sales, Y/N, I’m not exactly picky,” Bucky says, as the first few lines issue from the speakers. The reader is an elderly man who puts a lot of emphasis on his Ts and Ws. 

“Evidently,” you say, sliding down in your seat, hiding from the sun’s rays that pierce through the windshield. “Why are you so desperate for entertainment anyway?” 

“I drive around a lot,” Bucky says with a shrug, and a modicum of tension reappears in his shoulders for the first time since that argument on the side of the road in Nevada. You study him for a long moment, waiting for him to continue, but he stays quiet. 

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you drive around so much? Is it for work?”

Bucky glances sideways at you, not a look meant to be acknowledged, and you raise your eyebrows expectantly. 

He shrugs again. “Not really. Just, you know, travelling around. I’m out in the middle of nowhere a lot.” He nods to the world outside the car, the one that refuses to look alive, and you frown. “So I guess I need to keep a stash of shit like this on hand, or I’ll, you know -”

“Go insane?” 

He quirks a half-smile, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. That.” 

“So why did you - Oh!” You sit bolt upright, hand stretching for the windshield as you point. “Oh shit!”

“What?!” Bucky looks at you sharply, throwing the car into park. It comes to a screeching halt, and you jerk in your seat a little as you turn to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s a fucking tree!”

Bucky’s brows draw together as you start hauling yourself out of the car. You can hear him scrambling after you as you hit the pavement of the road, but you’re so wrapped up in the euphoria of feeling solid earth under your feet that you hardly pay him any mind. 

“What are you talking about?!” 

Bucky comes to a stop next to you, standing on the brink of the road and the rocky wilderness, panting. You just point straight ahead, right to the twisting, towering silhouette hardly thirty feet away. 

“A tree,” Bucky says, and you give him a sheepish little shrug and smile combo; it’d be unfortunate if he strangled you out here. 

“The only tree for  _ miles _ ,” you correct him, and start marching ahead, squinting through the sunshine to try and see the odd shapes dotting the tree’s spindly, leafless limbs. “I think it’s a shoe tree.”

“A shoe tree?” Bucky’s trudging after you, and his footsteps crunch on the uneven rock. “What the hell is that?”

“You know,” you say, gesturing with a sweep of your arm to the tree in question, “a tree with shoes on it. A shoe tree.”

When you look over your shoulder, Bucky has stopped walking and is watching you with a flat expression. “You don’t say.”

“I do say, actually.” You stop, having reached the base of the tree, and stare right up into its branches. The shoes are a mess of different patterns and colours, though they’ve all worn and faded with time. A pair of purple pumps hang off a limb next to your face, and you trace your fingertip along their flank, the material smooth and dusty. 

“God, don’t touch that,” Bucky groans, his hands fluttering around yours to draw you back away from the shoes. “It might be infected.”

“The  _ shoes  _ might be infected?” 

“They might have something gross on them,” Bucky retorts; he’s settled right behind you, and you glance over to see him looking up into the tree, too. “Like a parasite or something.”

“You’re paranoid.”

“I’ve also never had a bug, so.”

“Liar. Eleventh grade, you had mono and Peggy made fun of you for a month.” 

Bucky looks back down at you, one brow quirked. “D’you think I got mono from a weird shoe tree in the middle of nowhere?”

“No, I think you got it from Lorraine Hemmings, because she told me she gave it to you and also gave me those apology brownies to put in your locker for her.”

“I thought she got the combination from Steve,” Bucky says, and you can see the pink on his neck that makes you want to cackle. More than a decade later, and he’s embarrassed about Lorraine giving him mono.  _ Nerd _ . “Did she tell you -”

“That she had to teach you how to French kiss? Yes. Sharon and I were gonna make buttons about it, but Steve begged us not to.”

“I  _ knew  _ how to fucking French kiss,” Bucky shoots back, and the pink has spread to his cheeks, the tips of his ears, which are peeking out of the messy curls of his hair now that his baseball cap has been discarded. “People said I was  _ good  _ -”

“People wanted to make out with you because you were hot, not because you were a good kisser. Face it, Bucky: your talents lie elsewhere.” 

“You thought I was hot?”

“I will drive off without you,” you say, and he just grins. 

“My car would never let you. She’d break down for sure.” 

“Oh,  _ she  _ knows loyalty, huh?”

“You bet she fuckin’ does. Hey, why are we standing here under this weird shoe tree?”

“I dunno.” You look back up at it, and the branches curl, almost defensive, under the onslaught of the sun. “Only tree for miles. Wanted to commemorate it.” You chew your lower lip, a spike of shame shooting through you. “Nothing better to do for now, anyway. Not while we’re still waiting for Nat to call.”

Bucky gives your shoulder a little nudge and you turn to face him, tilting your head to look him in the eye. He’s smiling, a faint one, and it does things to his eyes in the warmth of the sun; blurs him a little, turns his face a bit softer, a bit younger. Maybe you’re just thinking too much about going to his place with Steve and Sharon, bringing soup courtesy of your mother and a card courtesy of yourself that read  _ get well whore _ , spending the afternoon watching old cartoon reruns and styling Bucky’s hair while he dozed. These disparate versions of Bucky are mingling together before you, and you blink hard enough to block the vision out with little white spots. 

“Don’t worry about that,” Bucky says, and he pulls you back down to earth in one effortless move. “We’ll find a way to pass the time until she does. There are plenty of ways to kill time in the middle of nowhere.”

“I think I’ve accidentally roped you into an actual roadtrip,” you say, and Bucky’s face spasms for a second before he flashes you a mock-scowl. 

“I think you have.” He glances up at the shoe tree, which reaches for the two of you like it’s desperate to be touched, and then back down at you. “Wanna get back in the car?”

“Yeah, this is kinda creepy.” You look up, frowning, at the tree. “It looks so lonely.” 

“It’s got the shoes for company,” Bucky says as he starts making his way back to the car. You follow slowly, glancing back at the tree every few steps, before suddenly hurrying in front of him and to the car’s trunk. 

“What’re you up to?” Bucky calls as he stops at the driver’s side door, and you hold up an old pair of flip flops with a flourish. 

“Be right back, don’t move!”

But Bucky is rushing after you as you take off for the tree, calling your name just as you chuck the first flip flop into the air.

“What’re you doing?!”

“Leaving it some company!” You say without turning around, and toss the other flip flop up. They settle into crooks of the tree’s gnarled branches, wobbly but tangled. You whirl on your heel, brushing your hands off with two self-assured claps, just as Bucky reaches you.

“So you gave it my shoes?”

“Please, flip flops don’t count as shoes,” you say, already marching back to the car, leaving Bucky to follow after you. “They’ve got bears wearing board shorts on them, Bucky. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t find those at a Dollar Tree.” 

“I -” Bucky stammers, disbelief colouring his voice as he follows in your wake. “They - the bears were - I  _ liked  _ those!”

“And I will get you a new pair of bear-themed flip flops, I promise.” You hop into the passenger’s side, wincing at the sudden heat of the car interior. “But that tree needed them. It’s an important landmark.”

Bucky just sighs, getting back into the driver’s seat and slamming his door closed. He leans forward to press his forehead against the wheel and you grin at him, reassurance oozing from you as you give his arm a firm knock with your fist. 

“It’s all good, Bucky. Flip flops are not, and honestly  _ shouldn’t  _ be, forever.”

“I think you’re gonna kill me.” He twists and stares at you, temple still on the worn leather of the wheel. His eyes are wide and baleful. “You’re gonna kill me, out in the middle of nowhere. I’m gonna die by your hand in fucking  _ Utah _ .” 

“Nah.” You buckle your seatbelt, prompting him to turn the key in the ignition with a hefty sigh. “I doubt I’ll get around to that until at least Colorado.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tysm for all your comments, you're all so so sweet!!! 💗💗
> 
> if u wanna yell, hmu on tumblr @mallowswriting. stay safe and have a good week angels 💗


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